NAFTA and the Fragmentation of Canada

Abstract

Introduction: Free Trade in Canadian History a deeply disturbing article about Canada's future, Charles Doran (1996, 108) cast the problem of Quebec separatism in larger terms and asked, In the aftermath of the Cold War, is the system of world politics evolving toward larger and more stable polities? Or is the system devolving toward smaller, more fragmented states, cast adrift by the loss of ideology at the top of the system and rising nationalism at the bottom? He answered his own questions by concluding that: At the turn of the 21st century, the real tension is caused by the struggle, on the one hand, of the huge multicultural state to survive, and on the other, by the thousands of populist, ethnic, and linguistic regional culture centers to carve out their own identities. Not limited to the poor Third World states, this new challenge to institutional authority is common to all multicultural states, regardless of political makeup or wealth. this essay, I want to take the questions he poses here even farther by relating them to NAFTA. Canada's future is affected by its place in NAFTA in much the same way as are the relations between Canada and Quebec even though, on the surface, NAFTA is not an issue of identity politics. But that is only on the surface. Canada, trade is not just a matter of buying and selling, of markets and profits. Rather, it speaks to the broadest definition of national well-being. From pre-Confederation times, the issue of free trade with the United States has evoked passionate reactions over how it would affect national independence (Brown 1966). Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy, in which protective tariffs were to be a means fostering industrial development, is now recognized as much for its symbolic contribution to nationalism and independence as its contribution to Canada's economic development (Jackson et al. 1986, 62). Since then, the attractiveness of free trade has always been offset by its vulnerability to nationalist attack (Granatstein 1985). Although his commitment to reciprocal trade relations with the United States was only one source of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's defeat in the 1911 election (Graham 1968, 176), the issue that sticks in our minds today is the opposition's slogan of No truck nor trade with the Yankees. From such reactions we can recognize that free trade is as much about identity politics as it is about economic relations between sovereign states. Free trade brings into question the meaning of Canada in highly complex ways. As a result, it is too simplistic to conceive of the issue simply causing a bipolar division between nationalists and continentalists, as though the latter had no claim to nationalism (Merrett 1996, 19-60). Was Laurier, with his message that the twentieth century would belong to Canada, any less a nationalist than Macdonald? There were, to be sure, those whom support of free trade was a step toward political union and, no doubt, there are still advocates of this view in Canada. But it is both more realistic and more inclusive to admit that there are others, committed to Canada's continuity as an independent state and an autonomous society, who remain divided over the optimum ways in which Canada should relate to the United States. At the same time, the general commitment to Canadian independence is not sufficient to dampen the cleavages created or reinforced by debate over free trade. other words, even if we disregard the extreme of political union with the United States, we are still left with deep societal fissures associated with competing definitions about the nature of Canada. post-Confederation Canada, free trade (or reciprocity) was a major issue in the election of 1891. Goldwin Smith, then a recent immigrant from England who came to embrace full union with the United States (Berger 1971), pointed out that the major cleavages were between industrialists and farmers, with farmers' organizations advocating commercial union (Smith 1971, 222). …